Reason for obesity is in your guts!

7th February, 2018: The intestines of a person is the abode
of microbiome, it is a “garden” of bacterial, viral and fungal genes. A new
study due to the researchers of Johns Hopkins University suggests that this microbiome
has an important role to play in the development of obesity and insulin
resistance in mammals, including humans. This discovery paves way for a new
method to prevent obesity and diabetes by manipulating levels and ratios of gut
bacteria, and/or modifying the chemical and biological pathways for
metabolism-activating genes. A report of the research is published recently in
Mucosal Immunology.

“This study adds to our understanding of how bacteria may
cause obesity, and we found particular types of bacteria in mice that were
strongly linked to metabolic syndrome,”; says David Hackam, the surgeon-in-chief
and co-director of Johns Hopkins Children’s Center and senior author of the
study. “With this new knowledge we can look for ways to control the responsible
bacteria or related genes and hopefully prevent obesity in children and adults.”

Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of conditions including
obesity around the waist, high blood sugar and increased blood pressure, is a
risk factor for heart disease, stroke and diabetes. Previous studies to suggest
that the bacterial sensor Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) may be responsible in
part for its development.

The researchers were successful in controlling the bacterial
levels of the gut of an experimental mouse in order to prevent the development
of metabolic syndrome.

“All of our experiments imply that the bacterial sensor TLR4
regulates both host and bacterial genes that play previously unrecognized roles
in energy metabolism leading to the development of metabolic syndrome in mice,”
says Hackam.